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How To Determine If Your Novel Needs An Epilogue [NaNoWriMo 2017]

Epilogues can be just as tricky as prologues can be. Why? Because you may not always need one.

Epilogues are used as an afterthought. They’re used to show the readers what happened to the characters after the big showdown and everything is resolved.

So, do you need one?

Do you have something new to say?

If there isn’t anything left to the story, but there’s some room for a little aftermath, you can get away with an epilogue. Sometimes it’s nice to show off what happens to the characters after the main event of the story. Of course, it can also work so that readers infer what happens after themselves, but if it’s important and you feel it’s a canon thing that needs to be said, go for it.

For example, show the “happily ever after” of your characters or explain what happened to the world.